 Hi, everyone. This is Terry Madsen with Code Pink. I'm part of our Latin America campaign and I am your host for today's What the F is Going on in Latin America. This is Code Pink's weekly webinar, 20 minutes of hot news from Latin America every Wednesday, 12pm Eastern. And today we are really excited to share the next 20 minutes with you in conversation with Ali Vargas. Ali is a Bolivian journalist and writer. He has been in Bolivia on the ground reporting for Mint Press since early December. And the timing of this conversation today is really terrific. We'll discuss the results of the October 20 Bolivian elections and the controversy over the pause in those elections, which led to the November 10 coup. And similarities to the Iowa caucus on Monday evening here in the States. But most importantly is to hear Ali's comments and experiences on the ground, particularly related to indigenous people, social movements and the unions, and how the interim or coup government is managing the run up to the May 3 elections. So Ali, I wonder if you could introduce yourself and give us a little background as to your own you personally and and your work the last three months on the ground in Bolivia. Yeah, thank you for having me on. It's a great honor to be with Code Pink. And yeah, that's right. I've been in Bolivia on the ground for about two months now, came after the coup, and I was especially interested in trying to see how the left, the social movements, indigenous movements and the movement or socialism are rebuilding in this new period. You know, they were in power for 14 years and now they've got to figure out a way to be an effective position and to be able to contest election amid all kinds of persecution, threats, violence, and I've been observing that process, especially, I've been visiting unions, indigenous movements in different parts of the country, in particular, where I am right now, which is the Chapali region of Bolivia, which is where Evermore is from, and where there are the strongest level of organized social movements, indigenous movements. So, yeah, that's that's been what I've been doing here, and that's what I'll be doing. Going forward, as well as the campaign, the election campaign held by this regime, you know, in conditions that aren't exactly free of fair. I hope to be able to be able to observe that process as well. Tell us a little bit about what you're observing in the lead up to the May 3 elections. Moss has has put forward their presidential vice presidential candidates, can you tell us a little bit about the two of them and then also in the news yesterday today was the prospect of Eva Morales running for the National Assembly. Upon a safe return to Bolivia for him. Tell us a little bit about the candidates and how this came about. Yeah, so the presidential candidate for the mass is Luis Arce Coram, and the vice presidential candidate is David Choquewanka. Now, the two ministers actually serve the longest under Eva Morales. Luis Arce was the economy minister, and he has, he's a Marxist economist, he comes from a circle of radical intellectuals. And he, he focused specifically, he talks a lot about the transition to socialism through building a new economic model. And he's a trained economist and he built the Bolivian economic model. Turn Bolivia from the poorest country in Latin America in the neoliberal period into the fastest growing economy of the region through essentially rejecting IMF recipes through nationalizing natural resources and other strategic industries in the economy and mobilizing that to engineer a level of growth and the income redistribution distribution. And the results of that was the GDP today is three times larger than it was in 2005, whenever Morales took power. The incomes grew at more or less the same rate of 300% higher today than they were in 2005. Around poverty in this country was reduced by about 50%. And this was all done. This all began in 2005, 2006, just when the US was saying that, yeah, if you ignore our advice, if you ignore the IMF and the World Bank, then a terrible crisis could be unleashed on your country and your economy. But instead, the opposite has happened. The Bolivian economy has flourished in that time. So he's very well respected for being able to deliver that being the kind of brains behind that. So he will be the presidential candidate. They hope that will bring him some credibility and be able to maybe bring back some of the middle class supporters who have abandoned the mass basically over the past few years. So that's the presidential candidate. The vice presidential candidate is a guy called David Choquewanka. He was a foreign minister under Eval, but he was also an indigenous leader. He himself is indigenous. He came out of the Campesino unions of social movements and he played a big role in trying to articulate indigenous philosophies and how they can relate to the political revolution that's been going on in Bolivia. And he has the most support amongst the ordinary members of the mass which are the indigenous movements. In fact, there was there was a little bit of tension when a lot of people wanted him to be the presidential candidate. And when he wasn't, some people were upset and David Choquewanka himself went to those movements and argued the case for unity for coming together in the face of the coup. And now the mass has been able to achieve a level of unity around those two candidates. And of course, yesterday in fact they published lists of candidates for the legislature of the Senate and the House of Deputies. And Eval Morales will be a candidate for the Senate in the department of Cotrabamba. He's first on the list, so it's absolutely certain that he will be elected. The mass normally get about three senators from Cotrabamba. So he will, he will most like, if you know if his candidacy isn't ruled illegal, then he will be in the Senate after May the 3rd. Well, we can only hope that he can can safely return to Bolivia in order to run for office. So let me there's a couple of things that you mentioned. And first, can I'd like to just have you say a little bit about about your background to our audience because we are listening to you as a Bolivian from the ground in Bolivia but we hear your British accent and I think this makes you such a unique person to be reporting specifically from Bolivia at the moment given given your your family and your heritage and can you just say a little bit about that and then I've got a couple questions on some of the comments you made. I'm half Bolivia, my dad's from Bolivia and my mom is from the UK, from Europe and I grew up, I lived in Bolivia till I was about five years old and then I've lived the rest of my life in the UK. But Bolivia has always been something that I feel great deal of passion about and that's why I've come back here feel great deal of almost responsibility to be able to help those here to be able to transmit what they're saying to a wider audience. And there's so much amazing work going on and so much organizing. I think the work from them from the hope to be able to play a small role in being able to help others take some of the lessons of what people are doing here as well. I think that's just such important work and you offer such a unique and important perspective to do that particularly to take the voices on the ground and Bolivia back to the northern hemisphere specifically North America and Europe so it's really wonderful that you're doing what you're doing. There's a couple things that when we were talking about the presidential and vice presidential candidates. Clearly it more of a, the goal of returning or continuing the economic growth based on a more socialist model, and that obviously is in contradiction to the neoliberal capitalist model being exported by the United States and embraced by the interim or coup government at the moment. Can you tell us a little bit about some of the rollbacks that have happened since October 20 or more specifically since the coup on November 10 that the change or threat from public investment in services to infrastructure and national resources to the privatization of the economy, which we have seen, you know, heinously imposed on Honduras. Now are we looking at something similar in Bolivia perhaps is that the risk. That's already the direction of travel is not happening on a dramatic scale just yet because there are elections in three months. And the masses spend 14 years saying that you know, if you like to wrote in government, they're going to begin to privatize everything like they did before. They're going to crash the economy like they did before. And the running parties are trying to deny this essentially to say no, we know, we're not going to slash and burn. But I think everyone knows that they're waiting until after the elections to begin the real sort of shock therapy, as you might say, someone call it the real sort of introduction and neoliberalism, but that's already where things are going at the moment. So, as soon as the coup government came to power, they replaced all of the sort of leadership, the heads, the presidents of the nationalized companies. Many of the new presidents were people drawn from the private sector from industries that were competing with the state state company. So an example of this was there's a state airline, boa that was created under a moral is this government is an incredibly successful company flies all around Bolivia, low cost. But the, the former director of the company was fired, and a new director was brought in from the largest private airline in Bolivia called Amazonas. And then the direct competitors of the nationalized airline. So they're essentially handing over the state airline says largest competitor to someone who was previously on the board of its largest competitor in the private sector. More, more recently, there's been what they call the lifting of export controls. And what that means is that number of cheap food imports are going to start coming into Bolivia, and the local production, what is the campesinos, people produce potatoes corn, they're going to be a lot more vulnerable now, and they're going to be able to compete with cheap imports from countries like Peru. And, and there was this government that was great efforts made to protect local industry local produce farming, and that's, that's being lifted at the moment. But as I said, I think the real grizzly stuff is going to happen after the elections, if the right managed to win power, because at the moment they're pretending that they're not going to do all of this. So all of the right wing candidates said, we're not going to privatize this, we're not going to cut this. But all of them are politicians from the 90s, some even from the 80s, who implemented themselves and ministers implementing some of the worst kinds of extreme neoliberalism. So we know where this is going to go if they win. So you know we're seeing throughout Latin America globally I would argue, but our work is principally in Latin America, the team that I work with and you as well. We're seeing this really, really aggressive form of neoliberal capitalism this forced opening of foreign markets and not just in Bolivia, but we're, but in recent years throughout the hemisphere and it's a very, very aggressive form of forced opening of capital markets it's being done, you know, in different forms of hybrid warfare I guess I would say, and soft and forms of soft coups, particularly economic sanctions led by the United States. And it's in Bolivia being the most recent example of this. And one of the other things you mentioned prior was the abandonment of the moss by the middle class in the last several years. Can we talk about that a bit because I think for many of us in the states watching Bolivia we were really really shocked dismayed and very sorrowful to see able to quote unquote resign on May 10. And I think part of that dismay was a lack of really nuanced deep understanding of the political turf in Bolivia leading up to the October elections and be helpful for you to explain the middle class to us a bit. Well, the mass as a party has never been a party the middle class have never participated in the party in any way. It's always been as a party created by unions, indigenous groups, and was born out of the struggles first against the DA and the USA in this region in the time we're trying to eradicate the cocoa crop, and also the social movements in the city, the indigenous city of El Alto against the privatization of natural gas. So that's where the mass kind of comes out from. But when they when they win the election in 2005 with a narrow majority, after that you get a wider layer of people middle class people in the cities, a minority but a significant section coming to the mass voting for the mass election time. So, after 2005, the Eval Morales increased his vote dramatically. So, even by 2014, he got over 60% of the vote. A big section of that is votes from the cities from the middle class sections of the cities who had enjoyed a right dramatically dramatic rise in living standards. Around is calculated that over 14 years around 3 million people were taken out of poverty and into the middle class. This is a country of only 10 million people. So a third of the country was moved into the middle class. And there was a level of support there wasn't an active engagement from the middle class in the mass but there was some sort of passive support, but that began to peel away in the past couple of years, especially. And the media campaign intensified enormously. There's huge campaigns of misinformation on social media on what you know what's up group became the primary source of information for people in the cities and Bolivia is a country where working class movements indigenous movement they get their political education through their unions through the organizations and that's what kept the mass together. But those middle class sections in the cities. Maybe they came from that and they suddenly didn't have that structure of political activity of political education anymore. So people began to consume information in quite an individualistic way, you could say through social media. For example, people, you know, open their phones and see a slew of right wing memes, high production quality and things like this and I think this took a lot of people in as a huge amount of misinformation, but a collective hysteria was essentially whipped up in the cities. And so by the time the coup happened, there was enormous conflict violent conflict between the middle class in the city and working class sections in the cities and in rural areas who had, who were no longer had very much in common to saw themselves as enemies, and that those are the conditions in which the coup happened. Wow, so there's so much I mean I feel like I could just keep talking to you all afternoon. Let's talk a little bit about what's happened on the ground. Since the coup and now we have the presidential the new presidential elections announced for May 3. The coup president is going to run for office, which I believe she represented she would not initially. And you're there you've been there since December. Can you tell us what's developing on the ground with social movements with unions with indigenous people with the coup supporters as well. Will it be possible for there to be free and fair elections May 3 for the majority of Bolivian citizens. And what are you seeing relative to the build up to election day. So the elections are certainly not free or fair. Just, I mean, even at the moment, they're not free and fair in so far as the candidates of the mass, including the presidential candidate, so are being persecuted them fake. So, Luisa say had fake charges drawn up invented against them less than 24 hours after he was declared to be the presidential candidate for the mass. The environment in which this is happening, you know, there's one of the Senate candidates in this region from the Charlie region is a young union leader called Adronico Rodriguez. Currently has four charges relating to tradition. It's just the label that are using to just target. This is the moment. So going into this with candidates who who can't campaign openly who can't go, you know, necessarily go to cities easily. You might get arrest or arrest warrants out against them at any moment. So, in that sense is not a free or fair election. In terms of election day itself, the, they've actually the government have actually invited us aid into the country, they're expelled on the ever more list. They've been invited back into the country to help organize the elections the actual technical side of the elections. Now because this isn't fair, because the USA was an organization that was expelled by ever more. You know, they were because of the destabilization that they were, they were, they were causing through the funneling of us funds to wrote me opposition groups. So this is an organization that is essentially biased against one of the candidates one of the parties that standing. So how can it how can they be the ones to organize free and fair elections. Yes, or also being brought in their role in the coup is now extremely well known them was key. So both of the international organizations that are being brought in to organize the vote itself have both played huge roles in running up against the movement or socialism against ever more analysis party. Right. It's certainly not for your fair at the moment. And how about, how about the physical conditions on the ground and seeing continued violence against Moss Party supporters is there are there physical threats against that particular demographic in general, or is it more directed at the candidates, or all of the above. Yes, or all of the above. And a lot of people still being targeted. As I said earlier candidates are being threatened with arrest warrant, but also on a sort of interpersonal level that there are fashions. Most paramilitary groups operating with relative impunity in the country at the moment. So, a number of ever moralizes ex ministers have who live in La Paz had their houses surrounded by groups of young people known they call themselves the resistance. And these are basically masked young people who go outside the houses, they don't let people go in or out, they don't let food, the water going around, they let off explosives outside the house. So there's that sort of environment at the moment. Journalists as well are targeted in Cochabamba, which is where there's one of the largest of these violent fascist groups. A week ago, they stabbed a community journalist who's doing a report on on some of their violence. And lucky to hear that person has now been arrested. He's one of the only person from these movements who has faced any kind of consequences. And maybe the police are going to start having enough, but they've been working with these groups throughout this whole period. The Sacaba massacre soon after the coup. These right wing fascist groups were coordinating with the police to carry out the repression. Maybe now the police will come fed up with them and want to impose some level of order. But up until this point they've been working hand in hand and that's what and, you know, people who are on the left are very wary about being so publicly. Not just because of being targeted by the state, by the authorities, but also being targeted by someone in the street. You know, this journalist who was stabbed last week, he stabbed a nightclub bar that, you know, people feel relatively unsafe, especially in the cities. So let me add a comment here regarding that which you're seeing on the ground. As the run as a pretext to the May 3 presidential elections, I want to let our viewers know that code pink is organizing in conjunction with a number of international activists. We are putting together a pre election observation delegation for March 21 through March 29. And we're hoping people like you Ali can join us on the ground in Bolivia and report on many of the things we're discussing today the actual physical ground conditions how people are how votes are being how voting participation is being suppressed or not what the government is doing to ensure free and fair elections in May. So that delegation is made 21 through 29 and we're hoping to attract academics human rights attorneys and journalists as yourself as well as activists. We're looking for people who have some prior election observation experience not specific to Bolivia but specific to the to the hemisphere. And so that's March 21 and 29 and then also we're looking at putting a delegation together for Election Day, May 3. We'd like people to come with us a few days prior, and then stay post election to not only monitor election day but the domestic and international response post Election Day. So I'm just going to throw that out there to all of you listening that if you are interested in doing one or both of these delegations to please contact media at code pink dot org or Michelle at code pink dot org, and then Ali, you have been very generous and giving us more than 20 minutes. And I'm wondering if there's anything in particular you want to share with us in in closing anything that we we should add to our conversation. No, I'll just add that I think this is a great idea that code pink plan to come. I think the the if the regime tried to read these elections will be because they feel that they can get away with it. Whereas if the more, the more, the more eyes there are on Bolivia, the more likely they will be to think twice. And so I hope code pink are able to come and then it'll be important to publicize that as much as possible so that people know that the world is watching. Well good and I'm hoping that you can join us and perhaps we can have an additional conversation on on on you working with us on that so. Okay Ali thank you so much I know it's not easy for you to readily jump on zoom from Bolivia, but it was a great half hour conversation with you and I look to look forward to working with you some more. Yeah, thank you so much. Okay, thank you. Bye bye be safe. Thank you.